A New Method for Radar High-Speed Maneuvering Weak Target Detection and Imaging

Weak-target detection and imaging are the challenging problems of airborne or spaceborne early warning radar. The envelope of a high-speed weak target after range compression spreads over range during the long observation period. To finely refocus a high-speed weak maneuvering target, motion parameters should be accurately obtained for compensating the envelope. This letter proposes a new imaging approach for high-speed maneuvering targets without a priori knowledge of their motion parameters. In this method, the azimuth compression function is constructed in a range and azimuth 2-D frequency domain, which can eliminate the coupling effect between range and azimuth. Theoretical analysis confirms that the methodology can precisely focus targets. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm improves the performance for detecting and imaging high-speed maneuvering targets.